constitutional formation of the Government. But the Fiihrer
saw to it that the execution of this plot was made impossible.'

This was the last story whispered into the ear of the aged
President. Schleicher was going to march in from Potsdam
with the Reichswehr and arrest him, Oskar, Papen, Hitler, put
them all in a fortress, in order that power might not fall into
the hands of National Socialism. The story was presumably
the product of the same minds that conceived the Reichstag
fibre and other like exploits.

So that fellow Schleicher was thinking of sending troops to
arrest him, Hindenburg? The excitement in and about the
Palace and the Kaiserhof Hotel was terrific. Without further
ado Hindenburg signed the decree making Hitler Chancellor.

That is how it all came about on January 30th, 1933.
So is history made. Berlin was buzzing like a beehive from
morning till night, the nerves of four million people were
quivering like harp strings. Only the very ill, very poor, or
the deeply enamoured were not moved on this day by lively
hopes or fears for the future.

I walked Unter den Linden to the Wilhelmstrasse, thinking
back to Armistice Day 1918 and forward to what might be
coming. I felt that this was the final breakdown of the peace.

The Brown Shirts were hilariously jubilant. fc The last trench
had been taken, the brown armies had the freedom of the
streets, even of the coveted Bannmeile — that square mile of
streets in Central Berlin where the Ministries and other
Government buildings are situated, within which political
demonstrations had never been allowed.

I stood at a window of the Foreign Office that night and
watched them tramping endlessly past, the Brown Shirts,
while their bands played Fridericus Rex and the Horst Wessel
March. Hour after hour they poured with their torchlights
through the once forbidden Brandenburger Arch into the
promised land of Unter den Linden and the Wilhelmstrasse,
marching with the triumphant ecstatic air of soldiers taking
possession of a long-beleaguered city.

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